2022 Saturday — The Grand Finale

Three hundred and sixty-five days all stacked together equal a year that’s now concluding.

”Evaporating” is a term that comes to mind, but because I have blipped this entire year I think a more appropriate word would be “preserved.”

On one hand, the year feels long and on the other, it feels brief. The saying comes to mind “the days are long and the years are short.” Actually a lot of days feel short.

This has not been a stellar year — no family weddings, no new grand-babies, no new jobs nor new retirements, but one adult granddaughter was voted by her colleagues as “Teacher of the Year” at the high school where she teaches, and the other granddaughter started her own “Home Sweet Home Cleaning” business, and she’s constantly booked. Our adult grandson is rock solid as a valuable member doing set-up and maintenance at his employer’s company on highly technical machinery.

At home our focus was on the backyard. In SoCal we finished the last portion of the yard with easy to maintain artificial turf. At our little coastal retirement house, the hill just out our back door was completely excavated and the dirt that threatened to become a mud slide during a winter storm is now, after 2 1/2 months of attention, secured behind retaining walls with a few flower beds here and there.

The two of us haven’t earned any trophies, rewards, or certificates; Mr. Fun spent the majority of the past twelve months learning to live with the side-effects of radiation received the end of 2020 for prostate cancer. I dropped 18 pounds without trying; the first few came off when I let frustration become stress; then a few months later, two weeks of illness melted a dozen pounds and exhaustion was overwhelming. We exit this old year valuing good health.

Our most meaningful personal accomplishment has been reading together all the pages from Genesis to Revelation of the Bible. For 2022 we used the version of the Bible our Pastor Jack Hibbs recommends, which is “The One Year Bible: The Entire New King James Version in 365 Readings.” At the beginning of the year 15,000 copies were purchased at church’s bookstore. The two of us started reading our Bibles together in September 1982, so we are now celebrating 40 years of reading together. I wish I could express that this is a habit and easy to do, but it’s not; therefore the investment gives us a sweet dividend.

The final three days of this year on California’s Central Coast have been rainy. The Bible tells that rain is a blessing from God, and we certainly agree. Every bit of California needs rain and has now been receiving it.

That’s a wrap; actually a year!
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too!